The Right is Not Wrong about Harriet Miers – She Can't be Trusted

The conservative criticism of Harriet Miers as being unqualified for the job should remind most observers of the liberal and legal community criticism of Clarence Thomas in 1991 as being unqualified after less than two years as a judge. Before Miers, Thomas was the least qualified person to ascend to the court in generations and conservatives decided that he would do just fine.

Why the difference?

Clarence Thomas was plainly in bed with the conservative movement and they knew he could be counted upon to defy the sensitivities of most women and people of color to have compassion for individuals stuck in circumstances only remedied by the hand of justice. He proved his fealty to the right wing in earlier rounds as chairman of he Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where he was all too willing to deny justice to black, brown and female complainants and was an outspoken critic of Roe v. Wade..

Her religious conversion experience not withstanding, Harriet Miers is completely untested. Though John Roberts had little paper trail and no tough court decisions to defend, he had been a member of the club – literally – as a member of the Federalist Society.

What lurks beneath the conservative critique of Miers is a very rational fear by the right wing. Because she has not been a part of the club, has not promoted herself as a conservative and is a ...well...woman (gasp!) she can't be trusted on the bench to be hard-hearted enough to look a pregnant fifteen year-old girl in the eye who has been raped by her father and tell her that she has no right to end the pregnancy unless she goes to her bastard of a father or her mother to ask for permission. What if the mother refuses to believe the daughter's incest story?

They have been masking this fear in other arguments and more flowery language, but at heart, this is the only thing that makes sense. Miers is a trusted evangelical Christian ally of George Bush who assures the world of her fealty to “the cause” in every code word he can utter. She would be the perfect foil for the Democrats who would find it hard to filibuster a genial woman with no paper trail and solid conservative support.

Instead, a civil war has broken out on the right and the nomination is in some amount of trouble. Democrats have a tough row to hoe on this nomination. The thing that gives me the most pause is something Kirsten Powers has also pointed out. I find it hard to take seriously a woman who believes that President Bush is the most brilliant man she has ever met.

She may be unqualified and she may be conservative but there are a few things to know about Harriet Miers:

1) Bush is a conservative and he will almost have to appoint another conservative nominee if she is defeated.

2) Miers is 60 years old and I would rather have a 60 year old conservative than another 43 year old conservative like Clarence Thomas.

3) Miers is undoubtably a right wing conservative, but because she is untested nobody really knows what she will do when she has to look a woman or girl in the eye who has come before the court as her last chance to receive needed medical care. She just might grow into the job. It has happened before. That's what the conservatives know and it might mean that the untested Miers is the best we are going to get.